CHAPTER XII
HOUSESTEADS TO PEEL CRAG
BORCOVICIUM
The fort of Borcovicium was constructed on the same general plan as that of Cilurnum, but it presents also a very great contrast in situation and in its special features.
Cilurnum lies in the fertile valley of the North Tyne; Borcovicium clings to the bleak heights; but they are alike in the massive nature of their gateways, in which pivot-holes and wheel-ruts can still be seen, and alike in the general arrangement of the Principia and other buildings.
At Borcovicium the Principia faces east, instead of north. A wide arch covered the main entrance, and there were two similar arches inside. There was the usual outer court, surrounded by a colonnade which supported a pent-house roof; the inner court, with a portico; and the series of five small rooms at the back.
In the northernmost room were found over eight hundred iron arrow-heads and some scrap iron, as if some one had been making arrow-heads here before the fort was finally deserted.
The columns here are round, as contrasted with the square piers of Cilurnum. One very beautiful base is left; it was probably turned on a lathe, as a pattern, and then the building appears to have been interrupted, and the other bases were copied from the first, not very successfully.
The storehouses (horrea), for supplies to last all the winter, have had as usual very thick walls and buttresses, in order to support the heavy stone roofs, tiled with stone slabs, to prevent their being set on fire by red-hot sling-bullets. The floors were raised above the ground on squared blocks of stone, to keep the buildings dry, and so preserve the grain. In the Middle Ages a circular kiln was made in the southern granary.
The masonry of the gateways at Borcovicium is particularly massive and beautiful. The north gateway opens on to such a steep slope as to render it practically useless for wheeled traffic. It has been suggested that general instructions were issued, and then carried out au pied de la lettre, even when inappropriate, under special conditions. Such a thing has been known to occur in more recent military works.